Heaven so fine
by coadhpgg
Summary: And when I shall die, take him and cut him out in little stars,and he will make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with night, and pay no worship to the garish sun. Modern day AU: Katniss and Peeta's childhood, beginning to end. Told in four parts
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: hello, this is my first and only AN because in this particular story, i feel like AN's will ruin the feel :) anyways, i have pre-written all the chapters so there should be no problems with updating. Don't worry, the summary isn't completely irrelevant it will all make sense later.  
**

**anyway, R&R please :)**

**EDIT: sorry, i was in a rush so i forgot some things.**

**1) i got the idea for this after reading "shine on my name" by dracosalooker76, district 11 reminded me of my childhood so, naturally, i wrote this**

**2) THANK YOU THE GIRL ON FIRE 127, one of my bezzies :) she edited the whole thing, and is an amazing writer, she's currently working on "the Taylor swift hunger games" which is awesome so check it out!**

**if you are wondering what shes like, i based Bonnie on her :)**

**R&R**

**...**

"But it is the nature of stars to cross, and never was Shakespeare more wrong than when he has Cassius note, 'The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars / But in ourselves."

- John Green "The Fault in Our Stars"

…

It was a cold September morning when they first met, she walked into school, watching the children twirl and dance in the playground, hugging her bag to her chest and hurrying on her seven-year old legs to the office.

The lady at the office was too bright and happy; she treated Katniss like she was five, let alone seven. Katniss hated her already. She hated her parents for making her come to the stupid school just because it was closer to their new house.

The woman, who seemed to burst with unnecessary excitement, led her to her class: Class 3D, where she could be spending the next year until they were assigned a new teacher and classroom.

There were five new people coming to class that year, so as Katniss shyly entered the class room and introduced herself. The teacher (who looked like a human bear) just raised his eyebrows at the students on the carpet in front of him and said "another one? We're gonna be the biggest class in the school at this rate!"

Katniss had missed the first few days of class; she was originally put in class 3W, where the boys called her 'Catpee' and tugged on her braid, and she asked to be moved after the third day.

There were self-portraits on the wall, that the children did on the first day, stapled up over a red and gold background, one that caught her eye was one of a boy who had blue eyes, and it was without a doubt the best one on there. Katniss felt a bit sad that she would never get to do one, but it was okay because it would never be as good as the one with blue eyes.

When the teacher asked for volunteers to show her around, everyone in the class except for four people (who she later learned to be the other new kids) raised their hands. It disgusted Katniss that they looked desperate to show her where the toilets were.

Eventually a girl called Delly was picked; she sat next to her for the whole morning and chattered for so long that Katniss was ready to tear her ears off.

At lunch time, Delly left her to play with her friends and Katniss was alone, the one time when she actually needed her.

It was a big playground; he stood in the middle of it, looking at the toys which were thrown around and listening to a few tone deaf children practise the latest pop song.

She eventually found a dusty red hoop, she picked it up, and was reminded of what her best friend from her old school used to do: practiced a game that her friend from her previous school had taught her where you flick a hoop into the distance and it comes rolling straight back to you.

The hoop felt gritty against her small hands, Katniss held it with her index finger sticking out to help her flick it. It was somewhat calming, knowing that the hoop would come back no matter what.

But there was one time it didn't.

A short, pale skinned, freckled boy picked it up before it could come rolling back to her. He inspected it carefully, his face hidden by a mop of blonde curls.

Katniss marched up to him, how dare he steal her hoop? He was probably one of those mean boys that would call her Catpee. She was ready to hit him (like her daddy told her to) if he did anything naughty. Quietly, she cleared her throat so she could shout at him when he came into earshot.

She was two metres away when he noticed her; he probably heard her urgent, angry steps coming closer.

He looked up.

Katniss gasped.

He had the prettiest blue eyes she had ever seen, ever. They looked just like the bottom of the swimming pool that her father took her to (which was next to Pizza hut), and they were quite intimidating to the dull- eyed seven year old.

Her voice barely came out as a squeak when she finally came to the big confrontation she had been mentally preparing herself for.

"That's my hoop."

He looked at her in surprise, probably because she hadn't said anything in the full minute she had been standing in front of him.

"Uh… sorry, I saw what you were doing, it was pretty neat can you teach me?"

Katniss wasn't sure what to say, no one ever asked her to play.

"Okay."

The boy grinned, and handed her back her hoop, without a second thought, Katniss took his pale hand in hers and positioned it in the correct position on top of the red hoop, she wiped her hands on her navy school dress later because there was always the small possibility that he might have cooties.

The boy, as it turned out, was terrible at hoop flicking, the hoop never came back and that particular time, it ended up two feet away from the large playhouse on the other side of the playground that the students liked to call 'the jungle gym'.

It was at least fifty meters away.

Katniss let out an extremely exaggerated exasperated sigh and sent him a glare that could make grown men whimper.

He blushed and looked down sheepishly, kicking an imaginary pebble on the ground.

"Sorry, not everyone's as great as you." He said with a slight seven year old lisp.

She went to retrieve it, if everyone was as great as her; life would be a whole lot easier.

In the middle of his million and tenth attempt to get the hoop to come back to him, he turned to her.

"What's your name?" he said, eyes furrowed like he was trying to guess it

"My name's Katniss."

He looked at her in awe as if she said her name was rumpelstiltskin.

"That's a pretty name, I'm Peeta Mellark." He said, Katniss eyes widened, she giggled, a sound that too rarely escaped her small mouth.

"Like pita bread? My daddy and I eat that with hummus!"

Peeta shrugged

"Sure,"

Katniss smiled at him, it was one of her rare sharp toothed grins.

"We can be BFF'S!"

He nodded vigorously

"C'mon BFF lets go get some pixie stones!"

There were no such thing a 'pixie stones' in reality, the school was littered with many little green, red and orange shards of blunt, broken glass, making the dull black tarmac sparkle in the sun, no one knew how they got there, the younger kids insisted that it was the remainder of what used to be a great pixie empire, they said that the dandelion seeds were really angry fairies in disguise, watching over the ruin of their home that the cruel head mistress had built her school over, so they collected all the shards they could find and filled up a little hole in the playground, so the pixies could re build their home, and since the glass in the hole was gone in the morning, they could only assume that the pixies took them.

The older kids said that Haymitch just dropped his drinks in the playground every day, but Peeta and Katniss didn't really understand that.

They collected the pixie stones next to the jungle gym in their hands, putting them in the hole and watching the little pile of tiny pixie stones get larger and larger.

They didn't get lunch that day, so many pixie stones to collect, so little time.

In that one hour break between 11:45 and 12:45 Katniss' heart grew ten times larger

And Peeta's infatuation with her intensified ten times more.

…

When Katniss' father came to collect her after school (ten minutes late, he had a busy job) he asked her about her day, so she told him.

She told him that she helped the pixies rebuild their house.

She told him that she made a friend called Peeta Mellark (and that they most definitely were not allowed to eat him with hummus)

she told him that he was terrible at the hoop flicking game

She told him that they would be together forever.

From that day, Peeta Mellark and Katniss Everdeen were inseparable, it turned out that he was a new kid too, one of the five, and that the popular boy Finnick Odair used to go to his old school.

They cried over their lost old lives together in the special year three playground.

When Delly and her friends came over to ask them what the matter was, they found that they couldn't explain.

Katniss' mother liked Peeta such a polite boy she would always say. And a pretty well off family too. Katniss' didn't like her mother when she said things like that; she was too overly obsessed with social status.

Katniss' mother and father came from a different country, when they moved to the great London town, Katniss' mother saw it like some sort of battle field and she wouldn't be content until she was up there with the queen. She never saw past a person's family or intelligence, but she had her moments.

Katniss was abnormally clever. She wasn't Mensa level or anything but when she started talking about homeostasis at seven years old, teachers began to take notice.

Peeta was average in intelligence, or maybe he was extremely clever, it was hard to tell when he spent all his time next to Katniss.

On a rainy Thursday (when was it ever not rainy?) the teacher took out two red hoops (which made Peeta grin at Katniss) and put them on the floor in a Venn diagram sort of thing where the circles didn't overlap.

The teacher explained Venn diagrams to them, scratching his no existent beard in frustration when the children asked stupid questions, then gestured to the two hoops on the floor

"If you think there are two categories here, than stand-up"

"If you think there are three, then stay sitting"

The whole class stood up except Peeta and Katniss

They sniggered at them

Peeta himself looked very unsure of the correct answer, but if his genius friend Katniss thought there were three categories, then there were three categories.

The teacher regarded Katniss with curiosity; she was sitting confidently and ignoring the sniggers and whispers of the standing kids around her, happily, she hit the blue carpet repeatedly with her palms.

"Katniss… why do you think there are three categories?"

"Well, there obviously three, the first hoop, the second hoop and the space outside" she said very matter of factly, like it was something all seven year olds in the world knew.

The teacher looked surprised for a second then shook his head while smiling, a very contradictory action.

"You are absolutely right Katniss!"

The students gasped and he explained it to them, Katniss smiled smugly.

The next day, they were told to write about their earliest memory.

Although it wasn't her earliest memory Katniss chose to write about the day she moved into her house in London.

She lost herself in the writing, describing every colour, every sound, every smell, very taste, her fingers moved to their own accord, occasionally smudging the ink and covering the words in a grey mist.

When she finished she handed her work to the teacher.

An hour later after reading all the papers, he began to gush over her writing skills to the class and read it out in an over enthusiastic voice

"I stumbled out of the car, I was feeling slightly car sick. As my feet hit the soft gritty pavement of north London, I drank in the sight of my new home. The numbers five and six hung up in gold over the coffee coloured door, leaning against a tree, (which scratched my back through my short sleeved shirt) I picked some of the yellow flowers lining the house and inhaled deeply, smelled like home, like my old home in Edinburgh, where the ducks swam freely in the garden and the grass was nearly as tall as me…"

If Katniss wasn't so focused on being embarrassed, she would have noticed Peeta, mesmerised by every word that tumbled out of the bear-looking teacher's mouth.

That was the day she earned her right to "school genius"

…..

The day she earned her right to "future pop star" was the day they were learning songs in assembly

They learned a new song every fortnight, but only then did Katniss have the courage to start singing.

"I'll talk it first, then you sing it back" the deputy head teacher said, bobbing her head to look like a turkey (the sunburnt neck wasn't helping with that image)

"Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag"

"Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag"

"And smile, smile, smile."

"And smile, smile, smile."

"If there's a Lucifer to light your lamp."

"If there's a Lucifer to light your lamp."

"Smile boys that's the style."

"smile boys that's the style."

"What's the use of worrying"

"What's the use of worrying?"

"It never was worthwhile."

"It never was worthwhile."

"Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile."

"Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile."

When Katniss joined in after they had finally learnt the words, he noticed that everyone around her had stopped singing.

She blushed and looked down.

Was she really that bad?

Then, one by one, all the students began to clap. Peeta Mellark smiled at her, and for a moment, her embarrassment was forgotten.

By the time they started singing "swing low" no one was looking at her.

So she and Peeta Mellark clapped their hands, doing that actions and laughing if one of them sang out of key (mostly Peeta) swaying to what would be the soundtrack to their childhood.

Swing low,

Sweet chariot,

Coming for to carry me home.

Swing low,

Sweet chariot

Coming for to carry me home.

Peeta invited her to his house three days later; he introduced her to his two guinea pigs, toffee and Kit Kat, who were successfully avoiding them in their little brown hut in his garden.

His garden looked like it had been cut right out of the Amazonian jungle, and plopped randomly in the bleak uninviting streets of London.

As they tiptoed over the bridge running over the little river that flowed in the middle of his garden (complete with seven different kinds of fish) Peeta pointed out a banana tree to their left, letting her stroke the long satiny leaves, telling her that the weather was not good enough to grow banana's, then apologised like he had done something wrong.

They played games in the garden with Peeta's mother or older brother coming to check on them occasionally. Until they plopped down on the water depraved soil and watched the fish swim past on the river.

Katniss looked at Peeta, the amount of water in her eyes rivalling that of the river.

"Daddy said that mummy's gonna have a baby." She said

Peeta looked at her

"I like babies." He said before turning back to watch the fish

"But what if mummy and daddy don't love me anymore because of the baby?"

"They'll still love you." Peeta replied "we got the guinea pigs, two of them! And mummy and daddy still love me."

"But that's different, Toffee and Kit-Kat are animals, mummy and daddy are having a proper human baby!" Katniss wailed

"If they don't, then I'll love you enough for the both of them."

When Peeta hugged her, Katniss didn't even bother to worry about cooties.

….

Peeta's mother said goodbye to her in her funny Brazilian accent as he left their house, she hugged Peeta and got into her father's car with her belly full of spaghetti bolognaise.

When her father asked her if she had fun, she gave him a way longer answer than necessary and then sunk down on their BMW's warm grey seat to play on her DS

When she arrived at her house, she rushed to her up the deep red stairs to her mother, who was taking on the phone to her friend in a very fake voice.

"Oh no! Really! Oh you poor thing, if I were you I would dump him straight away, you need a real man." she said, rolling her R's and making a sound similar to that of someone coughing up mucus as she spoke in her mother tongue.

"Mum! Mum! Mum! Guess what, I had so much fun at Peeta's, we played games and…"

Her mother cut her off with a glare and a shut up.

"Oh, who was that?" she continued to her equally as fake friend "it was just my daughter; yes she doesn't know proper manners. It's a shame that hitting children is frowned upon here, but one trip to her grandma back home and she'll learn her lesson in no time…"

Katniss humphed and stalked off.

….

She planned to run away that night, she packed her hello kitty bag with necessities like her DS and two foot tall teddy bear which she had named "Doopy" he even wrote a note and put her shoes on and everything.

At the last moment, she waked past a framed picture of her and Peeta eating ice cream on a warm April morning, getting more on their faces than in their mouths, the sun had made Peeta's hair look like gold that day.

She couldn't do it.

she couldn't leave him

They were BFF's, best friends forever.

Forever.

She ripped up the note and unpacked her bag, the next morning, the hug she gave Peeta was uncharacteristically long.


	2. Chapter 2

Gale Peeta and Katniss were eight years old when they first meet Gale Hawthorne and Finnick Odair.

Hawthorne was known for telling obvious lies and had dyslexia, once upon a time, he was popular, but that time was so distant that people were starting to wonder if they imagined it.

They got partnered up as "reading buddies" and every day at exactly nine o clock, they would go outside the classroom, it on a fragile old desk with plastic chairs and read the absolutely thrilling adventures of "Biff and Chip" Gale read to her and she listened, occasionally helping if he was stuck on a word.

At least that what they were supposed to be doing.

He would read for the first five minutes, changing words to make sentence sound rude or pronouncing things in a funny way to earn the gift of the sweet sound of her laughter.

The next twenty five minutes were spent shamelessly criticizing their classmates work as it was hung on the wall.

"That one looks like someone ate a load of crayons and was sick all over the page!"

Katniss could hear chattering coming from inside as gale began to read about floppy's adventures, when he saw she was getting bored, he quickly changed his accent.

He sounded slightly Spanish, but not Spanish, he was rolling his R's and pronouncing all his vowels in a funny way, it sounded awfully familiar.

"What are you doing?" she hissed

"Reading, what else?"

"No, that's not what I mean, what accent are you doing?"

"Brazilian, like Peeta's dumb, strange mum." He said, Katniss could feel herself growing red with anger, it stared at her ears then progressed to the middle of her face, it was all she could do not to get up and slap him in the face, she was acting as if he was insulting her own.

"Peetas mum isn't strange, or dumb! Just because she speaks a different language! I bet she can 'peak Portuguese better that you can 'peak English! She's actually very nice thank you very much." She said, but the time she had finished, her voice was rough from shouting.

Gale huffed

"Whatever."

When they came back into class, everyone was silent, Peeta's eye refused to meet hers, he just got on with his number bonds to ten like the good student he never was.

She rushed over to him after school, nearly in tears, she tripped over on her way to him and scraped her knees, but she just got up and continued running, almost knocking him over as she slamed into him.

"I'm sooooo incredibly unbelievably really, really sorry Peeta! Gale was just being a horrible-"

"I know," Peeta said, effectively cutting her off "I heard it's okay."

He grabbed her hand.

They were silent for a few moments, all Katniss could process was the Weight of his hand in her own

"we're good together Katniss Everdeen" he said, before squeezing her hand and making his way to his father.

….

Peeta introduced her to Finnick the next day; he said they bonded when Finnick was walking to school and Peeta accidently threw an egg at him, missing his brother Rye by a mile.

When he grabbed her hand in front of Finnick and Gale while they walk home, she wondered if they were going to make that hand- holding a permanent thing.

…..

Katniss' mum looked like she had shoved a balloon down her top. She waddled like the ducks Katniss often saw at the pond near the park. When she asked how the baby got inside her mummy, her father just patted her head and told her to ask again when she was older.

The baby had small fingernails.

That was the first thing Katniss said when she saw her.

"Her fingernails are so tiny!" were her exact words

Her mother and father laughed at her and told her that the baby name was Primrose.

Katniss could feel her heart bursting at Primrose; she would love it so much that the baby would probably be sick of her loving her so much. She knew right then, that it wouldn't matter if her parents stopped loving her because of Primrose. In fact, Katniss wasn't even the one having Primrose and even she would stop loving herself.

Katniss played with her small hands and stared at her fingernails, small ones, which were grabbing a little duck toy and shaking it about.

"Little duck." Katniss says "I'm going to call you my little duck"

"Do you want to hold her?" Katniss' mother askes after a few minutes of weeping and contended silence

Katniss frowned

"No, her skull isn't even fully formed yet."

A midwife raised her eyebrows and chuckled

"You two are lucky, this one," she said, gesturing towards Katniss "will love her enough for all three of you"

With Katniss loving Primrose for her parents and Peeta loving Katniss for her parents too, Katniss wonders if her parents will have to do any work at all.

….

Peeta didn't like Gale.

Katniss knew as much, by the way he glared at Gale to often and told him to shut up even if Gale didn't even say anything.

When Gale held her hand at school, Peeta refused to touch her until she got the "Gale germs" off of her.

Katniss had told him that he had started growing cooties

"Oh come on! You don't really still believe in that do you? We're eleven for god's sake!" peeta shouted at her as she stormed off, feet pounding against the tarmac.

She was immediately flanked by two girls, Delly and a popular girl called Madge who she ate her lunch with.

"What's wrong?" asked Delly, who sounded like a mosquito slamming into her head again, and again, and again.

"Mind your own beeswax." She hissed

"I like bees…" Madge mused.

What?

That girl could be more than a little dim sometimes.

"I'm going to the field!" Katniss announced, running to the field as fast as her leg could carry her.

The field was literally what it sounded like, a small field at the back of the school, with a small patch of pathetic looking bushes that dared to call themselves a forest.

Even though she was upset, Katniss couldn't bring herself to not continue the tradition of rolling down the hill onto the field.

She kept her eyes open as she rolled, watching the pea green blades of grass blur in her vision, feeling the damp earth cool on her skin.

She rolled onto something warm and hard.

That something yelped.

She and the something both stood up quickly, they both knew that you weren't meant to go to the field unless it was summer.

That something had blonde hair

Peeta?

Peeta the something kicked up dirt with the end of his boot "uh Katniss… sorry, I was being mean" he started, continuing his assault on the poor dirt.

"Why?"

"Because Gale's stealing you away! You are my best friend mine! And he's taken you in, like, a day! And he holds your hand and you two are gonna get married!" he shouted

Katniss' brow furrowed

Gale?

Ew.

"But we're meant to get married Peeta, you and me. We is gonna have a toasting! And my auntie can come and do henna, she's a professional henna artist, you know! And I'll wear my favourite trousers, and you can wear your new 'teenage mutant ninja turtles' hoodie and it will be the best day ever!" she said, in barley a whisper, she wasn't sure if Peeta still wanted to marry her.

Peetas eyes widened in excitement

"Can I bake the cake?"

"You bet! And we can put that edible glitter on it!" Katniss replied

They spent the rest of lunch planning their wedding

He runs ahead of her, quick, but heavy steps that scared away every living thing within a ten mile range.

Katniss had given up on the race; no one had ever won against speedy legs Peeta.

After Peeta realised that she wasn't racing him anymore, he trudged over to her.

"How come you never race me?" he asked, running his fingers along the seemingly random rusty fence in the middle of the forest

"Because you always win." She said, poking him in the ribs "speedy legs"

He shrugged and plopped down next to a stream.

"It's so not fair! You get a forest, like, two minutes away from your house!" Peeta whined

"Life's not fair, Peeta." Katniss replied, smirking. She had discovered the forest when Prim was having an off day; she had run off to escape the screaming and barely made it out of earshot of her house when she discovered the opening to the forest.

This had naturally began a secret club for Peeta and Katniss, every Wednesday after school, they would go on adventures in the forest and more often than not, bed up in "Rowan Hill park" which lay on the other side of the forest.

They had found a small willow tree near a stream which had branches so low, that they domed and covered Peeta and Katniss in what was, in effect, a roof.

Katniss had taken her spare key and began carving on the trunk of the tree

P+K

AC

It was messy and almost unreadable, but it was still there, a permanent reminder that the tree was theirs and no one else's.

"What does 'ac' mean?" Peeta asked

Katniss looked at him like he'd grown a second head

"Adventurer's club, stupid."

"Oh." Peeta said, remembering that 'adventurer's' was the name of their top secret club.

Peeta gently took the keys from Katniss, if they were going to have a permanent reminder of their special place, Peeta wanted to have carved some of it.

BFF'S always

He carved, Katniss smiled

"We'll be best friends forever right?" Peeta asks

"Always." Katniss replied "and when I shall die, take him and cut him out in little stars and he will make the face of heaven so fine, that the entire world shall be in love with night, and pay no worship to the garish sun." She said, remembering a pretty interesting line from a book that Katniss' mother was reading by a boring old fart called William Shakespeare. she had stayed up all night memorising it.

Peeta looked at her in awe, until she gave him a funny look, which caused him to look down and blush.

"It's just… you have no idea of the effect you can have."

…

Gale joined the adventurers club.

Peeta had let it slip that he was going to a special club meeting that dreary Wednesday, and gale asked to join.

Katniss had absolutely no idea why Peeta said yes, it was probably because Gale had demanded it rather than asked it.

Then Finnick asked to join, and they couldn't say no, because they already said yes to Gale

Then Madge joined

Then Delly.

It wasn't their special club anymore; it wasn't their special forest either. One thing remained theirs though, and that was the tree. Nobody, not even Gale Hawthorne, could take that away from them.

Their little group became bigger and bigger, it seemed that whenever the popular people had an argument, one of them would come to them.

So, the little club that had once been just Katniss and Peeta, became Katniss, Peeta, Gale, Finnick, Delly Madge, Cato, Johanna and Thresh.

Katniss didn't like it.

Tensions were running high in their little group of eleven year olds; they were down to their last term of school and were waiting for their SATs scores. Even with Finnick's corny jokes, Johanna's funny threats and Delly and Mage's awful songs, they never went a day without fighting.

The first time Katniss and peeta fought since the adventurers club stared came the day after they got their SATs scores. It was a sunny Tuesday morning, a rarity in England, there was not a cloud in the sky and the children were sneezing left and right as hay fever kicked in.

Katniss had only got two questions wrong in all of her SATs, so naturally, she wanted to brag.

As she came in singing about her high score, Peeta felt something inside him snap.

"Geez Katniss, will you please shut up! Please, for the sake of all of us who aren't as perfect as you! No one cares about how damn clever you are!" Peeta shouted. If his mother was there, she would have washed his mouth out with soap.

People around them stopped in the hallways, standing on the polished floor, watching the scene unfold.

Katniss looked at him, trying to blink back tears; she held her head high and willed herself not to cry.

She told herself that the heart was just a muscle for pumping around blood, it cannot break.

"Peeta…" she started quietly, with her eyes screwed shut and hair tickling her face "you aren't perfect either, stop acting like it. You point out my flaws like it's your job. Stop it"

"I'll do that when you stop acting like you're the next Einstein" he replied through gritted teeth

"Well you ain't gonna be a professional runner either speedy legs." She spat.

He turned on his heel and left.

….

Katniss reminded herself as she sat under their willow tree that the heart was just a muscle for pumping blood, it cannot break

As she listened to the rain pitter patter on the dome roof of their tree she reminded herself that it was not their tree, it belonged to no one

She reminded herself that she could have scratched the "P+K AC BFF'S ALWAYS" off the tree, but she couldn't find her keys.

She reminded herself that she had no idea that her keys were in her back pocket.

She reminded herself that the heart was merely a muscle for pumping blood, it cannot break.

It cannot break.


	3. Chapter 3

The "explorers" club was born under the worst circumstances.

After their bitter fights, people began to take sides, Peeta, Delly and Johanna remained in the "adventurers" club, the rest of them sided with Katniss and thus, the "explorers" club was born.

As the last week of primary school rolled in, Katniss and Peeta had still not made up. The last week itself was hot, humid and similar to a day on an African landscape. Hay fever was worse than ever.

Katniss had been accepted into a "test" school as they called it. More than 1500 kids applied for the school. Only sixty got in. Katniss was one of those sixty.

Peeta was going to the local secondary school, where more than three quarters of the kids at school were going. He had tried out for the school Katniss had been accepted into, but frankly, he was not a genius.

Katniss' mum had told her to stay away from Peeta, but not for the reasons you might expect. She stopped liking him because he wasn't clever enough. She insisted that staying his best friend would only drag her down.

When the last day of school came, they watched movies all day and signed each other's school uniform with cliché wishes for the future and many, many smiley faces.

Katniss' shirt had not been signed by Peeta. So as she left school for the last time to walk home, she tried her best to avoid him, but he had different plans.

"Katniss!" he shouted

She whipped around; the end of her braid slapped her in the face. He caught up to her in less than five seconds, barely breaking a sweat, and living up to his nickname "speedy legs"

"What?" she said, spying his mother hanging around awkwardly behind them.

"I just… I don't want it to end like this. We were meant to be best friends always, and I wouldn't be able to bear it if I never saw you again." Said Peeta

Katniss face softened.

"We are best friend's Peeta. It's carved on the willow tree remember? BFF's always."

"BFF's." he grinned "always."

"Always."

"So, I guess this is goodbye." He said "I'm really gonna miss you."

"I'll miss you too, but we'll meet again, I promise."

"And we'll have that toasting you always wanted."

Katniss blushed

"Sure. Bye…speedy legs." She said, turning to leave, but apparently second guessing herself because she rushed into him for a hug.

He smelt familiar, of cinnamon and dill and the salt and vinegar crisps that he was so obsessed with, and as he held her tight, she wondered how she'd lived for almost a term in an argument with him. She wondered how she will live when he won't be there with her.

Somewhere in the middle of the hug, his lips descended on hers, they tasted like salt, either from the Crips he was always eating, or from his tears, and they felt soft and warm against her own, slightly chapped ones. It was her first kiss, and quite strange sensations, it made her feel all tingly inside. Somewhere in the background, Mrs Mellark awed.

They leapt apart.

"It's okay Katniss." He said, wiping a tear from her cheek, she hadn't realised she'd been crying "We'll meet again."

Katniss smiled

"Don't know where, don't know when."

"But I know we'll meet again some sunny day." Peeta finished, almost singing the words to the latest wartime song they had learnt.

"Bye." Katniss said.

Katniss didn't wait for his reply as she trudged up the hill to her house. She didn't look back.

…..

Katniss didn't speak to Peeta again after that. She had made some friends in her new school. They were weird, but perfect for her.

One day, three years after she last saw Peeta. She sat on her bed thinking. She had been reminded of him after reading the words to "swing low" in a book. She tried to recall everything about him. His middle name, his birthday, his, smell, the exact colour of his eyes, the way his hair flicked slightly at the end.

He surprised herself by remembering every single thing about him, except the colour of his eyes.

He had taught her a little thing when they were children; you write a wish on a piece of paper, rip it up and sprinkle the bits of paper out your window.

Grabbing a bright green gel pen and some crumpled paper, she wrote her wish down

"I wish I could see Peeta's eyes again, just once."

Carefully, she ripped the paper up and pushed open her window, watching the pieces of paper get torn away from her by the cold winter wind and carried off somewhere, far, far away.

She imagined a piece landing in his garden, and somehow, he would know it was from her and come rushing back to her, with a wide smile, singing "swing low"

…..

She followed her father around in the hospital.

She was six years old the day she decided she wanted to be a doctor.

Her father had taken her to the hospital, letting her go into a "top secret area" that only the staff were allowed in. they called it "the lab"

Her father had let her put on a long white lab coat and look down an actual microscope

"See that?" he had said "that's bacteria, it makes your tummy hurt."

"It looks like grapes!" she said

"Yes they do look like grapes don't they, and those green things next to the bacteria? Those are viruses, they give you the flu."

"But they're tiny daddy! "

"Yes Katniss, but sometimes very small thing can make a very big impact."

Her six year old self didn't understand it at all, but that day, she vowed never to let those tiny things that looked like grapes hurt anyone ever again.

…

Sixteen was a bit young to start worrying about work experience, but she always liked to be prepared.

She watched silently as he walked around, making important phone calls and telling people the correct what to treat a patient with a high fever who was allergic to paracetamol or ibuprofen.

She met two of her friends at the high street next to the hospital; they were walking to the local sweet shop when Rye walked past with some friends.

She topped in her tracks

"Rye?"

"Kitty Kat!" he shouted, causing her friends to look at her weirdly

"Um, hey."

"Hey yourself, kitty, Peeta wouldn't t stop talking about you since the day you left year six. He keeps looking for a way to track you down, so, I hear you moved house, eh?"

"Um yeah, we live slightly east of here now."

"Cool, anyway kitty, I got to go. I've got me a hot date." He winked "I'll tell Peets I ran into you!"

"Okay. Bye." she said, watching him waltz away like he famous. Sometimes that boy acted like he was one of those movie stars that the girls at school were all mad about.

As she turned back to her friends, she wondered how Rye knew she'd moved house.

She walked to the bus stop with her friend Bonnie. Bonnie was something of a textiles genius and a full time grammar Nazi, she was the strangest of their bunch of friends.

"I wonder if Daniel's here today." She said

Daniel was the temporary name she gave to the guy she stalks until she learnt his real one. She said that he walks down her road every day and that she was completely in love with him.

"Bonnie, no one cares about Daniel right now." Katniss said to her, somewhat harshly, she wasn't in the mood for her stalker-ish tendencies.

Bonnie rolled her eyes and looked longingly back to the sweet shop, exaggeratedly licking her lips, she had a giant sweet tooth , just at that moment a group of boys came out, each with a bottle of coke and a bag of pick n' mix.

Bonnie rushed up to Katniss, a little close for her taste and shook her vigorously

"That's him! That's Daniel look, he's the blonde one!"

Katniss gave a perhaps, slightly exaggerated sigh and made a big show of being reluctant to look at the boys, who were crossing onto their side of the street.

The blonde one stopped suddenly in his tracks. And. looked. Straight. At. Her.

"Yo, Peeta whatca' doin' over dere man?"

Katniss almost choked on her own spit.

Peeta?

"Peeta?" she barely whispered

"Katniss?" he said, in an equally pathetic voice

"Who?" said Bonnie

Katniss wanted to slap her for ruining the moment.

They both ignored her. Peeta (or Daniel, whatever Bonnie wanted to call him) had definitely grown, the boy, who, at eleven, was barely as tall as her, now had a good head over her. He was broad shouldered and strong looking; he had grown his light hair out, which fell over his perfectly azure blue eyes in a blonde wave, it shone in the dull grey light.

Peeta, who looked like he had snapped out of a trance, rushed over to her and engulfed her in a bone crushing hug. He still smelt like cinnamon, dill and home.

"Katniss." He breathed

"Peeta." She answered, just as a raindrop landed on her nose. He laughed.

"Peeta! You lied to me, you said we'd meet again on a sunny day." She said

"Well, you and I both know that the chances of that were slim." He chalked

He turned away from her

"Hey Marvel! Go on to the station! Me and Katniss are gonna catch up!" he shouted, to a brown haired boy who was apparently called Marvel. The boy nodded and him then he and three others walked down the hill to the train station.

"Hey Katniss, I'm gonna go to the shop." Bonnie said, winking at her, before getting ready to cross the road. That girl changed the love of her life like she changed her socks.

"Let's go catch up. Then, I discovered a little park a bit further off." Peeta said, running a hand through his perfectly waved hair. "It has a forest." He said; Katniss could hear the smile in his voice

"Okay," Katniss said

They went on their way, it was awkward and uncomfortable at first, and none of them knew what to say to each other. So they just walked along, breathing in the gritty smell of wet pavement until they were comfortable talking again.

"so, how's school." Peeta said, scratching the back of his neck, something he did when he was nervous. He hadn't changed a bit.

"Uh, good, finished my GCSE's" Katniss replied

"We're old now… we've missed so much of each other's lives." Peeta said, with a hint of nostalgia

"Well, it has been, like, five years." Katniss replied

"Yeah."

"Yeah." Katniss said "do they still call you "speedy legs"?"

"You know it." Peeta laughed

"I bet I could beat you in a race." Katniss smiled

"Is that a challenge, Katniss Everdeen?" he asked

"You know it." she replied, mocking his previous tone

They got ready to race, Katniss copying Peeta's starting position, a low one, with her fingertips on the pavement, resting near an A shaped crack, and her heels of the ground, like she was ready to pounce.

katniss looked at Peeta out of the corner of her eye, he was looking ahead with scary determination, it was the look he got whenever he ran. it was his life, running. he aspired to be in the Olympics representing great Britain, and by the way he ran he wasn't far off. Peeta had always voiced how much he wanted to be known, to go on living even after he passed, in a way, when he ran, he was chasing immortality.

"three." She said

"Two."

"One!" Peeta shouted, and before Katniss could even breathe, he burst off like a firework down the road at a speed that would put a cheetah to shame; she could hear his heavy footsteps echoing on the ground as she rushed off after him, the wind fighting against her, tugging her braid back and screaming in her ears.

Peeta slowed down, just enough for her to go in front of him, not enough that she would know that he had let her win.

He held his breath so that his face would turn red, and as she passed him, he began to pant.

"I'm…so…tired." He said, giving a pretty convincing performance if he did say so himself.

Katniss wasn't paying attention to anything around her; she was so elated, so pumped with adrenaline, pride that she had "beaten" the great speedy legs, that she didn't notice the red and yellow truck rushing towards her.

Peeta did though; he rushed towards her, shouting

"Katniss! There's a truck ahead! Katniss please! Slow down!"

"yeah right Peeta, you're just a sore loser!" she screamed back.

Peeta's speedy legs failed him, it was quite sad really, he was just fast enough to be in front of the truck, but not fast enough to push her out of the way.

The truck driver tried to swerve at the last minute, he wasn't quick enough.

They were both crushed under the hard wheel, their dark red blood splattered on the road.

And as Katniss died in his arms, she watched her life flash before her eyes, a red hoop, the "adventurers club", the "explorers club", a lab coat, watery blue eyes, a leathery banana tree, "Swing low" ringing in her ears.

She smiled.

It's a good life.


	4. Chapter 4

**An epilogue of sorts**

Peeta died in hospital three days later, really there was no chance in him surviving, the wounds were too critical. He died in his father's arms.

His last words would be curious to anyone who didn't know his story, he had spent most of his time at the hospital in a coma, but once, just once, he woke up. Weakly, he had turned his head to the pained face of his father.

"We were good together, weren't we?"

His father nodded, Peeta gave a tired smile

"I'm off to be cut out in little stars…" he said, before drifting off back into the coma. That time, he didn't wake up.

…..

The night that he died, there was a meteor shower. In a way, everyone fell in love with night that day and paid no worship to the garish sun.

In that sweet period between evening and night, Delly Cartwright pointed at the sky

"Look!" she said "the sky looks like Peeta Mellark's eyes!"

Finnick agreed

"I would've killed to have eyes like his."

The original "adventurers" club had got together in the forest around a bonfire to pay their respects to Peeta and Katniss. It was their first "adventurers" club meeting where no one laughed.

"Who wants to speak for Peeta?" asked Johanna

"I will." A voice called out, every one turned to look at Gale, who was nonchalantly watching the beer in his plastic cup swirl around.

"I hated Peeta Mellark." He started; everyone looked ready to chuck him under a truck "I was jealous of him, so jealous. I thought he was stealing Katniss away from me. And he was so good, his heart was so big, that I'm surprised it didn't jump out of his chest and beat the shit out of that truck." He chuckled humourlessly "I would give anything to have died instead of him, because if there's anyone who deserved a chance at life. It's Peeta Mellark, and I think, a part of Peeta Mellark lives on inside all of us. Katniss had his heart, it kind of fitting that it died with him. "He bit his lip "Peeta Mellark, I drink to you!" he shouted, raising his cup to the sky.

Madge took over, stumbling through the words in a hiccup voice.

"Katniss Everdeen. I don't know what to say about her, she was a genius, she had a short temper, she loved her little sister more than life itself. She was like the sun in our little solar system, we all revolved around her." she hiccupped, and looked around "and even though she's gone, this star will not go out."

"Katniss and Peeta, we love you. Present tense."

The friends downed their cups and drank, in a silent salute to their lost stars.

…

Everyone grieves in a different way, and little Primrose Everdeen found a way to turn her grief into something productive, she spent the rest of her life campaigning for road safety awareness.

On the fifth anniversary of their deaths, the whole borough seemed to smell like toast, the smell hung in the air for an hour. Around the amount of time it took to do a toasting.

And maybe, they had their perfect wedding after all.

But one thing is certain, after they passed; the stars seemed to shine a little brighter.

People paid no worship to the garish sun.

...

**A/N: so, that's it. That's the end, hope you enjoyed my random fanfic that i did :) thanks again to THE GIRL ON FIRE 127 for being awesome, go check her out. And thank you if you read/Reveiwed**

**:)**


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